Welcome to METS

Welcome to METS.
My name is Vince Knight and I am a METS agent here at Cardiff in the Mathematics group.
I am briefly going to describe to you what it means to be a
METS agent and the sort of skills that is expected of you.

With great power comes great responsibility.

As a METS agent you will have great power, great knowledge.
*but* with that great knowledge comes a great responsibility:
- You must ensure that that knowledge is shared;
- You must ensure that you treat everyone you interact with with respect and politeness;
- Finally, you must ensure that you welcome failure: not
just your own from which you may learn but also the failures of others -
encourage fellow agents.

Agents are all around us.

You might think that this is the first you hear of METS agents, but in fact
they are all around us. As you are now a part of METS I can share some secrets.
What follows is some work by agent Nick: one of our best agents.
$$
\begin{pmatrix}
50, 50 & 0, 100 \\
100, 0 & 0, 0 \\
\end{pmatrix}
$$
Here is the situation we have just seen yes?
[Explain the model]
Imagine that agent Nick controls the row: which column should Ibrahim select?
- If agent Nick is in the first row Ibrahim should pick the second column. -
If agent Nick then chooses the second row: Ibrahim has no reason to change.
This is called a Nash Equilibrium and the result is that **no one gets any
money**. **What exactly did agent Nick do to change this outcome?**
$$
\begin{pmatrix}
50, 50 & 0, 100 \\
100 - \color{red}{\epsilon}, \color{red}{\epsilon} & 0, 0 \\
\end{pmatrix}
$$
By suggesting his plan: stating that he will steal and will then split the
money agent Nick places some level of doubt that changes the utility in the
bottom left cell of our matrix. Note that epsilon is not at all guaranteed but
he places some doubt in Ibrahim's mind so that he now has a reason to not
steal.
Agent Nick here uses game theory for the common good: Ibrahim got his share of
the money and agent Nick's share was used for agency purposes that you do not
yet have the proper clearance for me to be able to disclose it with you.
Game Theory made huge advances thanks to this METS agent: agent Nash. Sadly
agent Nash passed away this year in a car crash but the mathematics he
developed had huge implications in:
- Biology;
- Politics;
- Economics.
In fact in biology his work allowed science to better understand how
cooperation can evolve in nature.
His work agent Nash (a mathematician) win a Nobel prize. Does anyone know why
that is interesting?
[Wait for response]
Explain that mathematicians do not win Noble prizes:
- Alfred Nobel
- Wife
- Field's medal

Try.

Impress.

Fail.

I wish you luck today:
- Do your best: enjoy yourselves.
- I know you will all impress us!
- Fail: embrace failure. Being a METS agent is all about learning from your
failures. Failure is just the path that success often takes.